2/23/07
The people that studied IR in the sixties thought of themselves as the first, pioneers to an emerging science where they could create a human system, a liberal idea where people could have better lives. Although, is this a cold, teleological system, or can it have warm humanistic potentials to influence it. General Systems Theory refers to the theory that instead of reducing an entity (e.g. the human body) to the properties of its parts or elements (e.g. organs, cells), system theory focuses on the whole arrangement. Inputs, processes, outputs, and the boundaries and environment all influence the system. The inputs force the sstem to become adaptable, efficient system and can be altered to create a new system if you are behavorily inclined you look at the world this way -we are conditioned to think this way. Things to look for in the general system is the complexes in interaction, species of elements (do you concentrate on IR through states?), number of elements, relations of them, and degree of organize complexity. An example was give, the Samuel Huntinton Religo-political imagination system. There can be closed and open systems, closed systems woud be ones that continue to operate as they were even with interference. Open systems have evolutionary processes, and the presence of a human element.